by Sean Heslin
There was continued gaping.
“Pib, there's a good fellow, can you tell me what these two overgrown flycatchers are here for? I am a busy man you know.”
“Certainly sir!” Pib launched into a short summary, pointing at the various figures in the room as she went along. Rancha and Perci continued to take stock of the situation.
As Pib had mentioned, Mr Harweld was indeed a fun guy, or to be more precise, a fungi. He was an enormous, sentient, saprophytic organism known as a manaphite. Filling the chair and most of the back wall of the room. The mass of the living gunk had the most unnerving effect on most people, and Rancha and Perci could safely be said to be most people.
Despite his disgust, Rancha noted details as was part of his training, though he had never heard of any of the manaphite race having grown so damn big before. Harweld's mass was a nicely varied mix of green, grey, brown and white, which pulsated gently and dissolved any unwary insects that scurried too close to one of his, for lack of a better description, tentacles. The ridiculously well-defined voice appeared to be coming from most of the white parts of his 'body' vibrating and creating the necessary air patterns. Judging by the way parts of him angled and shifted, he was seeing by a means of a complex range of light-sensitive cells arranged all across his form. Rancha gauged that his hearing was terrible though, but figured there was only so much you could do with unnatural evolution.
Pib's description of events meandered to an end, and if it could be said that Harweld looked thoughtful, then it should be described as such.
“I see, you have a slight problem then, we currently have a lack of that amount of that type of currency. Not to mention that the physical number of Stands in one bag would be exorbitantly heavy. Do you know, they have osmium in them? No idea how. But I digress, I suppose a cheque would be out of order at all? No, I didn’t think it would, Pib, could you possibly fetch the chequebook…”
Rancha with a superurglon effort regained control of his speech centres.
“Justaminuteholdonthere,” he managed to blurt.
Parts of Harweld swivelled towards Rancha. Furry tendrils came far too close to his squishy face.
“Yes?”
“If you of all people don’t have that much money, I doubt somewhat we will be able to find a bank that will be able to cash it.”
Harweld chuckled, a disturbing sound. “Hah, a businessman in our midst. You impress me Mr Rancha.”
“Just Rancha please.”
“'Just Rancha' eh? Well, Just Rancha I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”
“Uh, well I, uh...” Rancha's mind raced. Perci took courage from his companion's words and contributed to his status as A Chosen One. “How were you going to pay him?”
A couple of Harweld’s tentacles swung towards Perci. “I beg your pardon?”
“That…what did you call it Rancha?…drangl there. Terand. How were you going to pay him for this other one?”
Harweld looked blank, insofar as that was possible. A small cloud of spores was ejected somewhere near the top of his mass.
“Well,” considered Harweld, a process that seemed to involved veins of something blue pulsing unpleasantly. “He usually seems to like being paid in some sort of gems. I was unaware he was going for this particular contract, so I've no idea what he would have wanted this time.”
“Gems?” said Rancha.
“Yes, diamonds, rubies, kintstones that sort of thing. Will you take that then?”
“That will be perfect,” enthused Rancha, trying very hard to make sure his enthusement did not come across as false. “An equivalent value in kintstones and emeralds or rubies if that is okay.”
Harweld seemed pleased “No, no. No trouble at all, a sensible proposition in fact. I'll have someone make up a bag at once. Pib? Will you nip downstairs and have a word with Iang. Thank you. Gentlemen, the bounty will be here shortly if you would like refreshments while you are waiting? There are some behind that curtain.” A tentacle indicated a covered opening. “I apologise for the lack of seating, but I've just had lunch, you know how it is.”
A now terrified Perci took note of the trace amounts of sawdust on the floor, curtly nodded and stiffly went to find something alcoholic behind the curtain, leaving Rancha to stay standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.
“So, you're an urglon are you dear boy?” vibrated Harweld. Rancha jumped at the voice.
“Yes, sir,” he answered feeling like he'd been caught eating in class.
“Nothing to be ashamed of old chap,” chortled Harweld. “My upbringing was quite obviously interesting as well. I've hired a few of you people from time to time, you make good couriers.”
“Yes, that’s one of the things we were bred for...” Rancha now felt not only had he been caught eating but been told to empty his pockets after he had just been handed some prohibited and illicit item by a naughty classmate.
“Hah, yes. Breeding. I know all about breeding. Do you know that when I was born, if born is the right word, I had none of this.” A tentacle was waved expansively. “It took me ten years and an awful lot of chemicals just to develop speech. Oh, of course, I always had intelligence, my lot has done for hundreds of years, I was just a little…slow.”
“Sounds awful,” Rancha sympathised, vaguely wondering where Perci had gone to, and not daring to turn his head to look.
“They fed me books, do you know that? The people who looked after me used to put me on show in some of the backwater villages, and they fed me books because it was a handy source of dead wood and none of them could read…”
“Sounds terrible,” empathised Rancha, listening to the distinct glugging of a bottle of strong liquor being emptied somewhere behind him.
“Of course what they didn’t know was that I was absorbing all the information in them. Shouldn’t have happened but it did. Then one day someone fed me an encyclopaedia set they'd taken from some old sage's library, oh and then the sparks flew…”
“Sounds scary.”
The tale continued. Rancha's eyes widened in horrible fascination at the tale of wholesale rampage, paper eating and shrewd merchant investments that followed.
“…and now I run this fine establishment.” Harweld seemed wistful. “It hardly seems like any time at all since I was just a bit of muck someone would have scraped off their shoe, but now, look at me! One of the richest and most powerful moulds in existence! What do you say to that, eh?”
Rancha squirmed. “Er, well done?” Harweld was silent for a moment and the mass tipped back in an approximation of leaning. Rancha held his breath, then, terribly, the gigantic fungus started to laugh uproariously. Rancha breathed slowly and shallowly.
“True! True! It was bloody well done! Ah, Pib, there you are.” Pib had just stuck her head/body round the door holding a small black bag that bulged richly.
“Here you go Mr Harweld sir. Thirty million Stands worth of kintstones and eight medium-sized rubies to make up the remainder.”
There was a sudden choking noise from behind the curtain and Perci reappeared.
“How much!?” he gasped.
Harweld seemed to nod. “Yes, that seems to be the right amount. Is there a problem with your friend?” he asked Rancha. Perci was hyperventilating and propping himself against the wall.
“Culture shock I think,” Rancha explained. “I don’t think he quite believes anyone could give away that much money. His family only recently gained some themselves and I've noticed he seems quite keen to keep hold of it. Come to think of it, I've never had that much money. Thirty million Stands you said?” he asked Pib, who nodded nervously.
Rancha returned the nod solemnly, and with great care not to fall over or yell on the way he went behind the curtain and finished what Perci had started with the drinks.
He reappeared a few moments later much calmer and swaying slightly. Pib was fanning a bit of paper at Perci and Harweld was chuckling quietly, mostly to himself. The bag of gems sat unheeded in the
middle of the floor, and Terand and Yrinmet were still incapacitated in a corner. Rancha nodded sagely at this setup, and taking pains not to look down or let himself know what his hands were doing, picked up the bag of gems and stowed it about his person.
Relaxing visibly, he kicked Perci back into standing, and went back before Harweld.
“Feeling better, my dear urglon?” inquired a highly amused Harweld.
“Much, thank you. Can I ask, what will happen to those two?”
“If you like,” Harweld replied genially.
A moment passed before Rancha's alcohol-fuelled mind caught on.
“So, what will happen to those two then?”
“Well, we'll probably take them both to the cells for the night. The drangl we'll kick out in the morning because he's good for business and the other drangls will have someone's head if we don't; as for the other one, well, let's say we'll be giving them a head anyway. Don't look too worried, it's standard practice and it keeps the streets safe. Well, safer.”
Rancha nodded mournfully. “We had best be off then. Thank you for your kind hospitality. Ah, we will pay to replace to bar.”
“Not at all,” replied Harweld “We try and be as pleasant as we can round here. Oh, by the way,” he said as Perci and Rancha reached the door. “If you do come back again try not to bring anyone else too high profile or we'll have to put you on the lists yourselves for being too expensive. Hahaha.”
“Hahaha.” Rancha dutifully enunciated, while frantically nudging Perci.
“What? Oh, hahaha. Erm,” said Perci. His leg was twitching uncontrollably.
In unison, they about-faced and left the room quickly, the door closing by a motive force that did not bear thinking about.
“Where did Pib go?” said Rancha as they went down the stairs. “I wanted a word with her.”
“Never mind that thing. How much money did we get again?”
“Thirty million Stands worth of kintstones and eight medium-sized rubies,” responded Rancha automatically. He turned to face his nominal leader. “It’s not as much as you think it is.” He was not sure what this vague, hopeful lie would achieve. He was rich. He was not used to that.
“If it's only a fraction of what I'm thinking of, I'm still going to need another drink.”
“Hmm.”
“How much was that again?”
“Thirty million Stands worth of kintstones and eight medium-sized rubies.”
They paused briefly to pick up their packs, with only the mildest of glares from the locker attendant and shortly left the premises.
Rancha glanced back at the building as they left and noted something with a thoughtful grunt.
“What?” Perci asked
“Nothing much, it's just I never noticed that on the way in.” He pointed at the offending article.
Perci glanced up. “It's the Random Justice sign, so what?”
“I know, it's just the bit at the bottom I never saw. 'A division of the Total Information Network'.”
Perci shrugged. “Do we care?”
“Possibly. Nasty little gits. If there was a formally accepted worldwide government, they'd be the guys who policed it. Or created enough scandal to get rid of them.”
“Never heard of them. Sounds like they help to pull some weight.”
“Unsurprising, knowing you. Just pray you never get picked up by one of their bounty hunters. Now there's a fate worse than an eternity of filling in forms after death. You don't mess with a TIN soldier.”
Perci blinked.
“It's getting dark,” he rumbled. “Let's find a place to stay.”
Rancha shook himself. “Agreed. I think I saw an inn on the way here.”
---
As the ragged pair walked away, an unobserved Harweld extended one of his pseudopods to the window to get a clearer view of them leaving.
“Trouble if I ever saw it,” he mused. Purple and blue parts of his anatomy pulsed as he thought hard about the movement of wanton heroes and the windfall luck of large sums of money through his local community. Too much of a coincidence. He probably should draft a report to the head office quite soon.
On the floor behind Harweld, relieved that finally nobody was watching and he could open his eyes and move about a bit, Yrinmet mouthed a few syllables and poofed into nothingness.
Chapter 22
“Equality in a relationship depends on two things. Saying yes and ducking when you say no.”
- Georew Wetson, advising his son the week before his arranged wedding, 4003 C.M.
On a winding forest path in a far off lonely place, a voice is singing in harmony with nature, weaving the rustling of trees and the chirrup of birds into its song.
A second, female toned voice joins it, insisting the first voice is singing it wrong.
It is a beautiful melody, full of the promise of ancient and modern wonder, bringing hope and life to all those who are lucky enough to bear audience to its recital.
The first voice sulkily continues, slightly louder.
The song echoes wildly across vast distances, filling the minds of a wandering shepherd tending to their flocks with a few moments of peace.
The second voice sounds like it is scowling as it becomes louder and clearer still.
Birds and beasts alike fall silent, the gentle refrain washing over them, giving them rest from the old, old dance of hunter and hunted.
The first voice sounds like it is going to start whinging, if that nagging doesn’t stop.
Over the hills and mountains and valleys, the song is heard, calming troubled thoughts, chasing away storm clouds, bringing peace and calm to all.
There is a short slapping noise and the first voice grinds to a sulky halt.
The song concludes, leaving the many and the few to collect their thoughts, sigh, and return to their daily lives with the knowledge they and their lives could be better one day.
The second voice sounds triumphant as the bickering echoes on and eventually disappears altogether.
Chapter 23
“Don't ask for much and you will receive it by the bucketload.”
- Clerical assistant nursing a hangover on the complaints desk of the National Bank of Jaanse during its second collapse, 4133 C.M.
“This looks like a good place,” said Rancha, stopping by a log building with a sign proclaiming that rooms were indeed for rent. Perci grunted, and pushed open the doors, allowing them a wide view of the interior.
There was a polished walnut reception desk on one side, a set of stairs covered with a gauze mesh curtain in the middle, a warm and comfortable looking lounge and bar off to the right and a lot of animal heads adorning most available wall space. The only members of the animal or indeed some of the more upwardly mobile plant kingdoms not cranially represented seemed to be any of the sentient ones, excepting, unfortunately, in pride of place above the lounge's fireplace - a pointy gargoyle's head, tongue sticking out for all eternity.
Rancha shivered. “Maybe we should find somewhere else.”
“Somebody's been busy,” Perci noted dryly. “I wonder if there's a club around here, I haven't had a chance to go hunting since I left the Valley.”
Rancha regarded his leader with a carefully blank expression. Perci had the vicious gleam of wonder akin to a particular kind of nine-year-old boy who had just learnt the pleasures of hamferg abuse.
“I really think we ought to be getting on,” muttered Rancha.
“Nonsense, just like home. This will do fine.” Perci marched to the desk, but continued to drool slightly at some of the rarer results of the taxidermist's art.
A prim woman sat behind the counter wearing the stereotypical pointy glasses, an iron-grey hair bun, and black dress with black cardigan. She had the look of a grandmother who does not let the younger members of the family leave her house until they have heard all her stories again and sorted through her entire collection of porcelain ornaments with a grim sense of torturous satisfaction. She seemed the sort of
woman that would be more comfortable in a library, ready with a sharp look and a loud and irritating 'Shhhh!' for anyone who deigned to breathe too loud.
They approached the grim reception with caution, and recoiled when her head lifted with an audible snap.
“Yeeeees?” the razor faced woman enquired.
Perci began to stutter. His early life had been ruled by women like this. He could still hear the voices telling him to eat it all up, or he wouldn’t get to play in the armoury.
“Wwwe…e..e…Well…W..W..” he stumbled.
Rancha, whose early life had been ruled by a vague wonder of where the next meal was coming from, felt slightly braver.
“W..we would like a room please, erm, if that is ok with you…” Rancha trailed off uncertainly. The woman did not seem to blink.
“One or two rooms?” the non-blinker asked.
“W, w, w, w, one please,” squeaked Rancha.
The woman looked down, her piercing gaze temporarily releasing the pair, who de-impaled, drooped in relief. She re-emerged clutching a large book, causing fresh agony.
“Please fill in the guestbook with full details and the first night costs ten Stands or whatever equivalent you have, we are quite flexible.” The voice brooked no argument. Perci trembled as he attempted to write something legible in the book and Rancha dithered as he scrabbled to find the gem pouch. He finally produced a kintstone and presented it for inspection. The effect on the woman was spectacular.
Warmth seemed to flood into the room, her face brightening like the first proper spring day after winter and a big friendly smile creaked its way into position. Rancha and Perci took a step backwards waiting for the catch.
“That will do nicely sir,” she gleamed, ebullient. “Here is your room key, I'll just send for someone to carry your bags. If you require anything, anything at all, just ring down and we'll sort it right out. You have a nice day now!” She gave them another winning smile and waved them helpfully on their way. Rancha and Perci backed away, becoming tangled in the beaded curtain to the stairs, fixed grins presenting themselves as shielding in case of sudden descending wrath.